2000-02-04 04:00:00 PDT WALNUT CREEK -- The chairwoman of Contra Costa County's Board of Supervisors yesterday called on the CEOs of Walnut Creek Hospital and John Muir Medical Center to meet with her Monday to discuss the latest hospital closing to hit the region.

Walnut Creek Hospital is one of the few acute-care psychiatric hospitals in the Bay Area that cares for children. The building and the land it sits on were recently bought by John Muir Medical Center from Behavioral Healthcare Corp. of Nashville.

Responding to community concern over the closing of Walnut Creek Hospital, Behavioral Healthcare announced yesterday that its hospital in Fremont will expand its child and adolescent care.

"I do think that they are quickly trying to backtrack here," Gerber said of the Fremont announcement. "I think that perhaps they didn't realize that simply selling their facility to John Muir and taking their dollars and walking away would cause the kind of reaction it has."

County Health Services Director William Walker and other health officials also have been asked to attend Monday's meeting. The county cannot stop the hospital closing, but officials hope a meeting with chief executive officers of the two hospitals will help them determine what effect it will have on treatment options for young people.

Gerber said that over the last week her office has been working with a mother whose 19-year-old daughter is suffering from a serious eating disorder.

"We've been trying to help this family find services. We would have referred her to Walnut Creek Hospital," she said. "That is not an uncommon kind of need, at least in my district."

A spokeswoman for Behavioral Healthcare said reconfiguring the existing beds at Fremont Hospital would double the size of its child and adolescent unit from 10 to 20 beds.

"I think we're trying to do a good thing. We recognize the need and we're trying to help with that need," said Behavioral Healthcare spokeswoman Heather MacDonald. "Offering the increased capability at Fremont we hope will be helpful at this time."

Eighteen of the beds at Walnut Creek Hospital are set aside for children younger than 12, and 28 beds are reserved for adolescents.

MacDonald said steps were being taken to provide for the well-being of all the patients now being treated at Walnut Creek Hospital.

"Our first and foremost concern is for the care of the patients who are in the facility now. We're going to continue treating the patients who are there now," MacDonald said. "They are our priority."

MacDonald said closing Walnut Creek Hospital was "a business decision."

Behavioral Healthcare closed the hospital before agreeing to sell the building and the land to John Muir, both sides said.

John Muir spokeswoman Patty Hefner said her company wanted the property because it sits near the John Muir campus.

"We have indicated (for several years) that if they ever decided to close the hospital, we would be interested in that land," Hefner said.

It's unclear what will be done with the property.

"There are no specific plans right now," Hefner said. "It gives us greater flexibility in our ability to work with the campus in the future."

The Mount Diablo Medical Pavilion, a hospital within the John Muir complex devoted to mental- health care, is planning to open an adolescent acute-care facility later this month.

Elizabeth Stallings, Pavilion's chief operating officer, said one- third of the hospital's 73-bed facility will be dedicated to treating adolescents.

Three other hospitals in the county -- one in Pittsburg and two in Martinez -- have closed during the past decade.